I’ve always been fascinated by myths
Dr Emman Usman Shehu is the founder and president of the Abuja Writers Forum and the director of the International Institute of Journalism in Abuja. He has just published yet another poetry collection titled Icarus Rising. In this interview, he talks abou
Your latest book, IcarusRising, has just come out at a time when the poetry arena in the country is in chaos over the NLNG Prize longlist. Do you think poets in Nigeria obsess over prizes?
This question goes to the heart of two fundamental issues in the production of the literary text in Nigeria. The first relates to the essence of literary awards or prizes, which basically serve to recognise good writing in a given genre, and call the public’s attention to it, as a result of which also some boost is given to the work through increased patronage. Therefore the panel of judges need to have a proper grounding in the given genre to be able to adequately establish rules for recognizing “good writing” within a given contest. Thus in judging a poetry contest, for instance, I would expect that the judges, especially if they are academics which seems to be NLNG’s preference, should be those whose area of specialization is poetry and not fiction. This would enable them judge the entries fairly on the basic principle of poetry analysis, which is to investigate a poem’s form, content, structural semiotics and history in an informed way. There appears to be a recurring fundamental problem in the judging of the poetry aspect of the NLNG Prize for Literature, and has unfortunately created the impression that something untoward is happening, resulting in the atmosphere of chaos.
The second issue is that there are very few major literary prizes for poetry in the country, and it has created a situation where focus by the poetry community is intense on this particular aspect of the NLNG Prize for Literature. Coupled with the fact that there is a general impression that poetry is the easiest genre, and so quite a lot of people are expressing themselves in the genre without taking the pains to hone their skills or understand the critical antecedents inherent in the genre. A situation amplified by the popularity of performance poetry which in itself also requires the skills of writing good poetry, and those of oral performance.
Is this state of obsession healthy?
The obsession becomes unhealthy if nothing is done to address the obvious paucity in the number of poetry prizes available, if the criticisms of the existing major prize are allowed to be overshadowed by subjectivity, if the sponsors of the major poetry prize refuse to do a SWOT analysis especially of the elimination process, and if there continues to be no interventions by way of workshops, residencies and publishing subsidies for poetry. Having all the foregoing in place would drastically reduce the seeming obsession.
Focusing on your book now, in Icarus Rising, what catches a reader’s attention is the nod to Greek mythology, with references to Icarus and Helen of Troy. Did you find parallels or intersections in local myths?
As a student and scholar of literature, I have always been fascinated by myths and their universal resonance. Inevitably that has also found its way into aspects of my creative writing because it allows me to experiment in certain ways with form and content. Also because I am experimenting with indigenous material including folklore, one has been drawn to the aspect of comparative mythology, whereby one compares myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics.
Interestingly, this was one of the reasons that delayed the publication of Icarus Rising because in the process of writing, I was also researching for our own parallels or points of intersection. I didn’t find exact parallels partly because there seems to be poor documentation of our own myths. So my approach eventually was to find thematic intersections as is evident in the closing section of the title poem where I used a variety of Nigerian languages to express a particular theme.
Looking at the compilation of the poems in your collection, they moved from love, inspiration, such as ‘Battering Ram’ to the outright political, such as ‘Trayvon’ and ‘As Syria’. What influenced the selection of the poems that formed this collection and the order in which they were presented?
As a writer, one is an observer of society and the world has become a global village. Coupled with my universalist inclinations from the standpoint of literature and forays in activism, I tend to find inspiration in things within and outside my immediate locale. The writer cannot operate in a vacuum and the more sensitive he becomes, the more he is able to find inspiration even in the most unlikely of places and situations.
My approach to putting together a poetry collection has always been like that of a musician producing an album of songs. Usually you do not see the demarcations on an album, as the tracks tend to flow into each other. So whereas some poets and publishers have the tendency of deciding to demarcate the poems in obvious sections, my approach thus far has been deliberately opposite. I prefer trying to bait the reader and draw him or her into the collection, so that the flow is sustained to the end without any obvious demarcations.
However, a closer reading would show that the poems are actually arranged in a basic thematic structure as you have observed in terms of the ordering. It also helps me when putting together a collection, because at various points I can assess the strength or weakness of the flow, and work towards sustaining the basic energy of the collection. That way I can weed out or change phrases or images that are weak, or those that re-occur without adding much substance to the work. At that point also, I can identify the poems that don’t fit into the flow of the collection, or I have to write new poems to fill what I perceive as gaps in the flow, or a flagging in the poetic energy of the collection.
One morning in February, just as Icarus Rising was about to go to press and I was re-reading the galley proofs aloud, it struck me that ‘Chasm’ needed to be pushed further into the collection, and so it ended up moving next to ‘Subversion’.
‘As Syria’ not only fits into what one can call the international section of the collection, but it is the kind of poem that showcases how I like to play with words in poetry. Compress the two words in the title, and you get the ancient name of Syria which resonates in the context of the poem.
You used poetry as a form of social commentary in some of the poems. ‘Search’ is a short poem that throws some introspection on religion for instance. Poetry and religion have had a long, sometimes controversial history. How convenient a tool is poetry in probing sensitive ideas like faith?
Poetry is very much a part of religion given that it was the earliest form of record keeping for mankind, and at some point was even considered the most important genre of literature. Several significant religious texts were initially recorded in the poetic form, and there are sections of the Bible and Qur’an that are still essentially poetry. Thus in the Bible, for instance, there is the wisdom poetry from Job to Proverbs, Praise and Prophetic poems in the Psalms, and love poetry in the Song of Solomon.
Poetry therefore can be a tool for exploring any idea including faith related issues. It all depends on the skill of the poet and the purpose of his or her exploration. One of the poets I admire and return to occasionally for inspiration is R.S. Thomas. He was a priest and apart from his naturalistic and sparse styles which always appeal to me, part of his poetic exploration was the consistent questioning of the seeming silence of God. Now, this could sound controversial to some people, but there is legitimacy to what Thomas was doing. We all, at some point and for various reasons, have had to mull on the issue of the role of God in our lives. While most of us do it privately, others like Thomas, Hopkins and Donne, made it part of their artistic preoccupation. So in a sense ‘Search’ was written in the context of an existing tradition of introspection in the poetic mode.
Some of your poems, such as ‘End Game’, are a take on the state of the nation and following your antecedents, you have been deeply involved in the Bring Back Our Girls movement, which inevitably has been